macOSWindowsiOSAndroid
Cloud vs local engine
Auto picks online cloud polish or offline on-device STT.
Before you start
- Settings → Engine visible in your client.
Steps
- 1
Open Settings → Engine. Modes: Auto (recommended), Cloud only, Local only.
- 2
Auto uses cloud when the network is up and falls back to local STT when offline or server unreachable.
- 3
Local mode downloads WhisperKit models on Mac (see Models in menu). Mobile uses OS speech recognition offline.
- 4
Privacy mode (Settings) can restrict cloud upload — local-only path still works.
- 5
After switching modes, run a test dictation in airplane mode to confirm offline behavior.
Common mistakes
- Cloud adds filler removal and richer rules on the server; punctuation does not use chat LLM by default.
- Local is ideal on planes or strict privacy environments.